I’d like to clarify this once and for all.
I started this thread to share my real-life experience, with the sole intention of showing an alternative that works well for me — including its strengths and its weaknesses. I’ve tried to stay factual and calm throughout.
Of course, I would also prefer Apple’s Home app to expose everything directly without needing a third-party app. That’s not the case today, but in practice I only need one additional app, and there are several viable alternatives (Controller, Home+, etc.).
In summary, for my setup:
- Matter and Apple Home work very well together
- Pairing devices via QR code is essentially “pair and forget”
(no driver selection, no mapping, no guessing, no initialization) - Thread has been fast and very stable in my environment
- The dashboard is intuitive and pleasant to use
- Automatic hub failover (Apple TV / HomePod)
- Real-time backup via iCloud
- Automations run locally
- Philips Hue works like a charm, is easy to setup and has a nice intuitive dasboard
On the other hand, my experience with Hubitat was different.
In my setup, Matter support does not yet work the way the standard intends, and I repeatedly ran into devices that wouldn’t behave correctly. To avoid this, I restricted myself to Hubitat’s compatibility list.
For European (or generally non-North-American) users, that list is very limited:
- many devices rely on US-centric radios (Z-Wave)
- others are not available locally
- import costs often exceed the price of the device
- or the form factor simply doesn’t fit
I spent a significant amount of time on workarounds and debugging — something that’s simply not acceptable for a non-technical household, especially if I’m not around.
Here in the forum, I’m often challenged — mostly politely — on details:
- I initially worded Thread as a sub-protocol of Wi-Fi (which is wrong — my mistake)
- I wasn’t aware that Zigbee 4.0 had been announced
- discussions drift into speculation (e.g. acquisitions, market positioning)
I actually find these discussions interesting and stimulating.
But they increasingly drift away from the original topic and require a lot of time repeating clarifications.
I’m not a tech genius, and I do make mistakes in wording or detail from time to time — usually with the right mindset, even if the phrasing isn’t perfect.
Going forward, I’ll only respond to comments that ask about my personal setup or experience.
Not because I don’t value the discussion, but because the time I gained by simplifying my smart home is time I’d rather spend with my family or other ongoing projects like creating my own PV dashboard, learning html, css, js, php and more.
